GAME NOTES: Playing under the Friday night lights, the Boise State Broncos welcome the Air Force Falcons to Idaho for a Mountain West Conference showdown.

Boise State opened the campaign ranked 19th in the Associated Press poll, but immediately the squad was knocked out of the Top-25 by Washington in an ugly performance, 38-6. The Broncos did bounce back however, with a 63-14 romp over Tennessee-Martin in the home opener last Saturday, but take that lopsided score with a grain of salt.

At the same time that Boise State was whipping up on the Skyhawks, Air Force was being pummeled in its MWC opener by Utah State, 52-20. The setback came on the heels of the Academy's 38-13 victory over Colgate in the opener back on Aug. 31.

Boise State won the first and only meeting between the squads back in 2011 by a 37-26 final.

The Falcons fell behind by two touchdowns less than four minutes in and were never able to recover as they suffered the 32-point loss at home to Utah State. The Falcons were paced by Jaleel Awini who, in his first career start at quarterback, threw for 61 yards and ran for a team-best 48 and a score before heading to the sidelines in the lopsided outing.

Karson Roberts made an appearance under center, completing 2-of-4 for 47 yards and a score. Air Force generated just 162 yards on the ground, a far cry from their usual routine, finishing with only 270 yards of total offense while giving up a hefty 577 yards to the Aggies, one of the newest additions to the MWC.

While Awini is still finding his way around at quarterback for the Falcons, it is important for the running attack to get back on track and hopefully control the tempo versus Boise State this week. Air Force thrives on the ground, having scored at least one rushing touchdown in 49 consecutive games, which is the longest active streak in the country at the moment.

However, just to keep the BSU defense honest, someone will have to challenge the Broncos vertically or else the hosts will simply stack the box and dare Air Force to make an attempt at going over the top. After two outings, Air Force has only one player with more than two receptions, so the threat is still not there.

Conversely, the Falcons had better be ready for an aerial assault from Boise State and Joe Southwick, particularly since the signal caller threw for 234 yards and five touchdowns in the romp over UT-Martin. Running back Jay Ajayi added a team-best 80 rushing yards and two more scores on the ground for Boise State as the team generated 220 net rushing yards and 472 yards overall during the onslaught.

The BSU defense did permit a hefty 362 yards to the Skyhawks, but the visitors balanced that out by burning themselves with 10 penalties which cost them 102 yards of field position. Shane Williams-Rhodes accounted for 186 all-purpose yards, including 89 yards, leading to two touchdowns on seven receptions for the Broncos.

The Boise State offensive line had some serious problems against a lesser opponent, despite the final score, as UTM's Tony Bell recorded five tackles for loss, two sacks, two forced fumbles and one recovery. For his efforts, Bell was named the FCS National Defensive Player of the Week by The Sports Network, not a good sign for the Broncos whatsoever. Boise State as a whole had just six TFLs in the outing.

Last season BSU averaged 5.7 TFL per contest, a step back for the group for sure, but the Broncos were still 11th in the nation in sacks with almost three per contest. So far this year the team has three sacks total.

Given that Southwick is still far from a dominant quarterback in one of the most exciting offenses of the last decade, keeping him upright is crucial if the Broncos expect to be playing in a significant bowl game. Sure, Southwick has tossed five touchdowns and been picked off only once, but considering his performance against Washington, there is still much work to be done and you can read it on the face of head coach Chris Petersen whenever his quarterback makes a mistake.

Getting Ajayi in gear coming out of the backfield will help the offense, but even with a team-high 173 yards and two of their three rushing touchdowns to this point, he still needs to be more of a contributor who can be counted on for big gains when Southwick needs assistance.

If the Falcons can control the pace and maintain possession for a significant amount of time then this meeting shouldn't become a blowout. But expecting the visitors to stay close with the way Petersen runs his offense is a lot to ask.